Teachers using AI for so many tasks (secondary school)

[inneedofteaandbiccies]

Was wondering what people think of secondary teachers using AI for presentations (Powerpoint style), worksheets, tasks (such as written tasks - information provided created by AI, history info sheets, history image creation for presentations, even Art department posters or example worksheets for art lessons etc using generated AI example images.

What do others think about this? Whilst I understand teachers only have limited time available, they managed without until a year or two ago, and my year 9 child is moaning about the excessive use and to be honest I am inclined to agree that it's not appropriate in all instances.

Just interested if you think this should be a part of school to such an extent that it's everywhere (just a state school, by the way!).

I think it's appropriate to use AI to help with tasks like these but if the children can tell that you've used it then you're doing it wrong.

I don't use it but know many colleagues that do. If it's occasionally I think it is ok. Personally I make all my powerpoints and worksheets but that's my choice. However, work loads have increased year on year and so I can see why others use it.

My concern is the quality is often poor.

Using general resources has always been done and some are good, some are not.

When you design your own resources, although it's hard, it means you know they really fit what you want to say. But time is so tight now.

I think it's hard to tell kids not to use AI if the teacher obviously uses AI.

If it helps them claw back some precious time to achieve a better work-life balance, avoid burnout and leaving teaching, I think it's not necessarily a bad thing.

There was a very similar thread the other day.
Everyone else is using AI, why can't teachers? You wouldn't complain if they used a text book or downloaded a work sheet from a website would you?

There seems to be this view that unless a teacher has slaved over something and written everything personally by hand they are somehow "cheating".

If your child is learning and doing well who cares really how the teacher is prepping their materials.
A good teacher is far greater than the PowerPoint and resources because they are the one who is explaining and adding to the basic information & bringing subjects alive.

Unless your child has particularly bad or lazy teachers I wouldn't indulge his rather entitled complaint but would wait to see the evidence of how he is actually getting on before stressing about whether the teacher is using AI.
Is your son doing his part by working hard, reading round the subject, doing his homework etc etc?

I can understand it. I think we will find a balance in the next year or so where obvious unchecked AI use will be seen as very cringe and unprofessional. People are finding their way at the moment, and teaching resources are an obvious place to deploy AI (structured, clear outcomes, can set a target audience very easily, links to published expectations and schema, lots of other resources out there…).

We're encouraged to use AI at my school. The kids are all using it too. Its the way of the world and learning to use it appropriately is sensible. It can be a great time saver, which is vital these days.

🗣️ It's 2026.

It really depends. If it means there are some interesting images and facts on a screen that means pupils will pay attention then it's a great thing!

I’m a secondary teacher and I don’t use it. I find fixing the mistakes it makes more time consuming than making stuff up from scratch. Loads of colleagues do though in other departments and I find that doesn’t really work with our eco- school status.

I have seen this used to produce work for absent colleagues. It ideal because you cannot magic a day's lessons before school at short notice. I have used to set cover work for myself if I am absent.

I agree. The demands of the job are unrealistic

Teachers use AI to churn out slop and in turn the kids use it to churn out their own. Soon we will be able to cut out the middle men

Whilst I understand teachers only have limited time available, they managed without until a year or two ago

No, they didn't. Loads of them quit due to excessive workload,

It’s a tool and I think it’s fine for them to use it. In what way does your son feels it’s a bad thing?

I think there's a definite problem with people not really knowing how to get the best of AI. They don't know how to prompt and don't edit the output.

If I were a teacher I'd be so grateful for this amazing tool. They work too hard.

I have recently used AI a handful of times, but it has all been to update already existing work or the odd worksheet to match a set of slides that exists already. My subject has very few textbooks and most that are available are extremely outdated. There just is no time to have to create work from scratch for all the different courses and levels and it has helped a bit anyway. Worksheets aren't great but they do provide a structure that I can then go over and tweak (a lot) but the refreshed slides are much more engaging. I would also say that pupils are very quick to point out excitedly "that's AI" even on something that isn't and was created a long time ago pre AI. Videos included, where it's more like getty images used. Is that banned too?

I personally get it in some instances.

But where I particularly question it are things like creative tasks or historical images for example:

• art projects - using AI art for example images for the kind of thing they should create? I think that's poor - it's a creative, imaginative subject and project, and it's not hard to get free source images. It's not an AI art lesson.

• history resource images - to generate an entire presentation using only AI images rather than original source images seems wrong somehow, we can't trust AI images to be accurate historical sources, and it should be clear where this might go wrong.

And so on.

I use it a lot to streamline my written information and to get ideas for starter and plenary activities.

It's a tool like any other. It does require careful proof reading and that's where it can fall down.

It's quite possible to overuse or poorly use textbooks, videos, worksheets, resources from common providers...

Good teachers vary what they do and check their facts and their sources. It's hard though to hold the line on quality when under time pressure and every year there's new nonsense. Last year it was "adaptation". What will it be this year?!

I've found it really useful for conversations like "how would I go about teaching X" or "how could I get shy students talking about Y"?

I am the only specialist in my subject in my school on the days I teach.

Everyone is using AI too much! I’m in academia and work mostly with postgraduate students in a RG uni. I am shocked at what my colleagues use AI for. Some of them are using it to scan social media and leave comments to raise their public profile. They are running all manuscripts through it. Some manuscripts for scientific publications are being entirely written by AI and not even fact checked. It’s horrendous.

I personally do not ever use AI intentionally (some systems use it and I don’t have a choice in the matter). But these are some if the top academics in some of the top universities in the world and they are slowly ceasing to be able to think for themselves. It’s frightening. There is tremendous pressure, so I get why people do it, and I assume this pressure is also at the secondary level. But I shudder to think where we’ll be in a few years when no one can write a scientific paper without Claude.

There’s a teacher in my department that uses it for everything, even though we have centralised resources that we’re all supposed to use and adapt. The kids take the mick of him a lot, but he gets brilliant results, because his teaching is more than his resources.

I do think there is a balance to be found. I use it to help structure a task, for example a short intervention or cover lesson, but I wouldn’t use it as a copy paste because I don’t think it suits my style. I wouldn’t want to become reliant on it though.

I use AI a lot in my work, it is actively encouraged.

I don’t see any issue with it as long as there is also a human validating and accountable for the output and that is always clear to us.

Teaching sounds like an ideal role to get massive time saving benefits from AI if used responsibly.

I've come to adopt it more and more for the non-teaching parts of my role especially, but also as source material.

There are the obvious things that used to take hours of my time and were completely irrelevant to the actual job, but yet required:

• making posters for XY information (revision offer, clubs, trips, rewards)
• making rewards certificates
• reformulating emails to sound more professional and not tell a parent their child behaved like a brat when I get an irate message at 10pm - likely also AI-generated
• social things for my team (e.g. a team birthday calendar)

And also the more relevant bits

• adjusting reading ages to well below age level while keeping all the information correct
• finding questions that are structured like the original, but a different type of application
• image generation for relevant images rather than spending time trawling the net
• tools built into apps, which reassign online homework based on prior achievement and adapted to individual pupils
• generating summary questions for videos
• setting half-decent cover work when I'm close to death and yet required to work

The issue is, the job demands too much. Far more than there are hours in a day, let alone a work day. So we use AI to take shortcuts.

Though some colleagues use it inappropriately and have been caught out. Which then becomes a performance issue.